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Monday, 30 November 2015

Wow, is it ever cold out there lately! What with that and the rain I'm keeping off the garden as much as possible. Thankfully I'd done a fair bit of filling the new sleeper beds with topsoil and compost before the naff weather hit though I do still have a fair bit to go.

Luckily I have plenty more soil available and thanks to my daughter bringing me home about 200 Wallflower plug plants I can fill it up for winter to stop the cats using it as a toilet.

I'm thinking we have a slight land drainage problem

When we first moved here 3 acres or so was completely plastered in awful gorse bush. We wasted way too much time and money trying to clear it without researching the correct way to go about it, this resulted in us simply regenerating new growth. We finally decided to pull all the gorse out with a digger, scrape the whole land with a digger and then literally go round pulling up all the little bits of roots that we could find. We now have land that can be mowed but we still haven't resolved the gorse problem - it really is a tenacious plant that isn't even destroyed by fire - we tried!
We can live with it though because the mowing will prevent it gaining any height and we thought it eould eventually stunt the overall health of whatever was left.
No such luck!

See all that dark green stuff? That's gorse and it's decided that if it can't grow up it will make a lovely prickly carpet instead.

Monday, 23 November 2015

OK so maybe the headline is a great big porky pie but it sure beats the truth - Winter has us in its grasp!
So keeping with the summer theme here's a few reminders to warm the old cockles - I have no clue what that means but I hear it all the time.

Sunday, 15 November 2015

Wow, there's been a sudden change in the weather hasn't there! The layers of clothes needed to be out in the garden are greater by the day, though I admit I've become a bit of a wimp when it comes to the wind and I avoid it at all costs, I've been utilising those days to get the polytunnel cleared out ready for bringing plants in pots in for the winter. I hadn't quite realised the degree of mess in the PT though nor the amount of plants I actually have to bring in - despite me planting seemingly hundreds of plants every year I always seem to have an increase in young plants waiting to go out the following year.
I've been filling the new sleeper beds but this task is becoming more and more difficult due to the garden 'helpers'.
I put this cardboard down to smother the grass while I fill the bed with compost but I never seemed quick enough and every time my back was turned Huntly decided that the cardboard was obviously for him

This is a wooden crate I made years ago to grow something in that needed containing, I was supposed to be removing it but Kasa has decided it's more comfy than all the beds she has indoors - I felt awful kicking her out.

I manage to get Huntly out of the area I need to fill only to find that Atlas has moved in. These dogs are absolutely no help whatsoever but for some reason I feel awful moving them lol.

With my back to the sleepers this is the area I currently have to work on.

Despite the weather change I was pleased to see this plant flowering away outside - I forget the name of it but I have it in both red and pink. Always figured it would be too tender for being outside here but I guess not.

Choisya always looks good this time of year doesn't it! A plant I don't make enough use of and I'm determined to correct that in the new garden next year, I love this Autumn/winter colouring.